Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions

by Valeria Luiselli

The problem with trying to tell their story is that it has no beginning, no middle, and no end.

“Before coming to the United States, I knew what others know: that the cruelty of its borders was only a thin crust, and that on the other side a possible life was waiting,

And once you’re here, you’re ready to give everything, or almost everything, to stay and play a part in the great theater of belonging.

whatever their reception in the United States, the children will keep coming as long as there is a need to escape from realities too frightening to bear.

We wonder if the reactions would be different were all these children of a lighter color: of better, purer breeds and nationalities.

It’s curious, or perhaps just sinister, that the word “removal” is still used to refer to the deportation of “illegal” immigrants—those bronzed barbarians who threaten the white peace and superior values of the “Land of the Free.”

Children chase after life, even if that chase might end up killing them. Children run and flee. They have an instinct for survival, perhaps, that allows them to endure almost anything just to make it to the other side of horror, whatever may be waiting there for them.

how do you explain that it is never inspiration that drives you to tell a story, but rather a combination of anger and clarity? How do you say: No, we do not find inspiration here, but we find a country that is as beautiful as it is broken, and we are somehow now part of it, so we are also broken with it, and feel ashamed, confused, and sometimes hopeless, and are trying to figure out how to do something about all that.